


A chorus of

by JoCarthage



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean lives a long and angel-augmented life, but when he approaches those pearly gates, what will the angels be singing for him? And will there be a certain someone to welcome him? A one-shot I wrote for the same writing exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A chorus of

A chorus of angels greeted Dean when he finally rose to those hellfire smudged but still-off-white-gates. Standing beside the choir with a sideways smirk was an angel in a dirty overcoat. It had been centuries since Dean had seen Castiel in that coat. Centuries of traveling in time, fighting to end one apocalypse after another, of distance and challenge.

They’d traveled together for most of it, and Castiel had used his small and dimming powers to help keep Dean alive long past the time his weary bones would have met the dirt they came from. But for those last 5 years, as Dean had declined in a small cottage outside of Antigua, Castiel had been absent. 

Inias said it was a war to keep the edges of Purgatory closed against the encroaching Leviathan that kept the angel away. Gabriel told him fantastic stories where Cas had become a sailboat to follow Dean and a drone to scout his location out and a dog to keep watch over his home. Annael promised he would visit the next day, and thanks to Dean’s Alzheimer’s the next day was always the next day. Sam, back on a trip from the future, had held his hand for a week, and told him Cas just couldn’t cut it with these human, biological ending moments. 

Dean knew, though the brain-fog and aches and mistakes about reality, that Cas had tried. He'd tried, but he’d failed to deal with Dean’s declining health. It was a careful balance he couldn't accept. He couldn't see how a soul gets weary and too grubby, no matter how perfect the body.

And so Dean greyed-out, slowly and feeling the pain of Castiel’s missingness, but no physical pain. He was attended by angels, by hunters from the deep past and high future. His mother saw him one last time, his father for a few days at a time, his grandfathers and even a child-Sam. He smiled at them, he met them on sidewalks and cafes and old-folks-homes. They didn’t know who he was, but they were kind to him and his bones could remember the feel of their soft-and-calloused skin when his mind left him in pieces.

Though he never saw Castiel, sometimes from just the behind the sunflower-yellow kitchen wall he’d hear his footsteps, hear the click of the record player and the slide of "Back in Black" or "Sympathy for the Devil" jerking and crooning over the clink of pots and snaps of cooking meat. These moments were precious to Dean. They came in the hour between shifts of watchers, in the rare time Dean had to acquaint himself with his aging body. It was a window the angels and hunters and friends and allies left, on the off chance this could happen.

Dean would settle back into his well-pillowed bed in the living room--the time had come when bulky medical equipment could no longer fit in his small, twin-bedded-room and he'd had to settle for the public sleeping arrangements--and let his eyes drift closed more easily than they ever did otherwise. He'd start small, filling the backs of his eyelids with the shape of Castiel's mouth when he smiled. Then the stubble on his chin, rough on Dean's thighs, then the light in his eyes when Dean surprised him and caught a caught from him. He felt his hands on his shoulders, felt the blunt fingertips digging in. He felt the smooth of a rubbed-hand on his side, the press of a shoulder to his, the fission of a kiss on his lips.

The sounds of his records and the brief shush of footsteps would cradle him to a softly-dreaming sleep. He'd awake with the echoes of the soft domestic noises of being cared for in his waking here and find a full dinner, but no angel.

When it came time for Dean to rise into the reconstructed heaven, Castiel had some ‘splaining to do. Cas stood with the entire chorus of men and women Dean had saved, friends who'd cared for him as a person and then for his failing body, all all rocking out to a medley of "Carry on My Wayward Son" and "Wayfaring Stranger", in golden-highlighted white robes with rocker haircuts and leather accessories. Sam was there, grinning and teeth glinting as he kept Gabriel from rushing in and spoiling things, Jo was there leaning on Ellen, Bobby there with John and Mary and Adam and Missouri. As Dean walked over the rainbow bridge, he saw Castiel’s face get clearer and clearer and he looked old, as old as Dean had felt as he lay dying.

His face was shiny and his eyes squinted, but Dean forgot his tough knee and achy hip and ran, ran with all of the force of the wings that had conveyed him to heaven and grabbed his friend, spinning him around as the chorus of angels transitions to "Amazing Grace" mashed-up with "Born to be Wild."

**Author's Note:**

> This was my theme music for this: http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=W2EJai-3k2w


End file.
